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THE THREE RULES OF AGREEMENT
1. Subjects and Verbs must agree in Number: Number is the only characteristic shared by
nouns and verbs, so this is the only way they can agree. The rule is the same in English: “John
loves Mary” but “John and Mary love each other”. All of the other nouns in the sentence can be
either singular or plural without affecting the verb or the subject in any way: the subject-verb
relationship is primary.
2. Nouns and Adjectives must agree in Gender, Number, and Case: This is all they have in
common: they must agree in every way. In fact, gender, number, and case are all that nouns and
adjectives have. If the noun and adjective are the same declension, they will usually rhyme.
(This is not a rule in English. English adjectives never change, so we say “blue house” or “blue
houses”, but not “blues houses”.)
The adjective follows the noun, rather than the other way around. This means that when
translating from English to Latin, you need to decline the noun first, then the adjective. If you
want to say “I see great danger”, then: (a) Both “great” and “danger” must be accusative,
because “great danger” is the object of the verb. (b) Both words must be singular, because we
are talking about one danger, not two or more. (c) And they must be neuter, because the word
for danger in Latin (perículum) is neuter. Thus “I see great danger” is perículum magnum
videó. (If there is more than one word with the same meaning, you won’t know what the gender
is until you decide which one you are using. For instance, “I have money” could be pecúniam
habeó or nummós habeó, since nummí, “coins”, means pretty much the same thing as pecúnia.
(The ancients had no paper money, only coins.) There is almost no difference in meaning, but
nummí is masculine plural, while pecúnia is feminine singular, and any adjective that modifies
either one must agree with it.
3. Relative Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in Gender and Number, but not in
Case: The relative pronoun is quí, quae, quod. The gender and number help to show what the
antecedent (in the main clause) is. The case shows what the relative pronoun is doing in its own
(subordinate) clause. Thus, if you wish to say, “I see Marcus, to whom I owe money”, the
relative pronoun will be cuí: it’s masculine and singular, because Marcus is masculine singular,
but it’s dative because it is the indirect object of “owe”. The fact that Marcus will be accusative
(Marcum) in the Latin sentence does not affect the relative pronoun at all.